New Move Confuses US Patents World

Abstract

Patent attorneys are perplexed and dismayed over a surprise decision by the U.S. Patent Office to drop its earlier objections to the second Cohen-Boyer patent application, covering basic processes in recombinant DNA technology. The patent proceedings, which were closed to public access at the request of Stanford University, have resulted in confusion over the meaning of the patent law's disclosure requirement as it applies to new organisms. Meanwhile, evidence of a prior Ph.D. thesis has called into question the originality of the Cohen-Boyer process. (KIE abstract)